A violet can never become a rose

Example is said to be better than precept. Cannot the value of personal example to another be considerable, like your own? 

Krishnamurti: What is the motive that lies behind this question? Is it not that the questioner desires to follow an example, thinking that it may lead him to fulfilment? The following of another never leads to fulfilment. A violet can never become a rose, but the violet in itself can be a perfect flower. Being uncertain, one seeks certainty in the imitation of another. This produces fear, from which arise the delusion of shelter and comfort in another, and the many false ideas of discipline, meditation and the subjugation of oneself to an ideal. All this merely indicates the lack of comprehension of oneself, the perpetuating of ignorance. It is the root of sorrow, and instead of discerning the cause, you think that you can comprehend yourself through another. This looking to the example of another only leads to illusion and suffering. 

JKRISHNAMURTI

(Collected Works, Volume III. New York City 2nd Public Talk 4th June, 1936)